


emergency room hangover

by saintsurvivor



Series: crimson as murder on a holy day [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Aftermath of Possession, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angelic Possession, Dean Winchester Being an Asshole, Dissociation, Gen, Hurt Castiel, Hurt Sam Winchester, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Torture, Intrusive Thoughts, Non Consensual Possession, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, POV Sam Winchester, Possession as a Rape Parallel, Post-Gadreel (Supernatural), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Castiel, Protective Sam Winchester, Psychic Abilities, Psychic Sam Winchester, Religious Guilt, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Sam Winchester Has Panic Attacks, Sam Winchester and Mental Health Issues, Sam Winchester's Demonic Powers, Season/Series 09, Self-Sacrifice, Touch Aversion, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-07
Updated: 2018-03-18
Packaged: 2019-03-26 23:53:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13868670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saintsurvivor/pseuds/saintsurvivor
Summary: In the days following the revelation of Dean’s betrayal and the emotional upheaval that comes with it, the sudden emergence of his long since dormant powers leave Sam stretched to the breaking point. However, matters are further complicated by the presence of Castiel, whose relationship with Sam has been estranged for several years.





	1. wreath me, iridescent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Please, Sam,” Soft, tender. A hand touches between his shoulder blades and the noises slowly bleed out, simply fade until they are but muted whimpers at the very back of his mind. “Answer me, Samuel Winchester.” Castiel orders, but his voice breaks, like glass._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Author's Note #1** : Alrighty! Welcome to emergency room hangover, which is my love letter to powers!sam, and my hate letter to how Dean behaved following the revelation of Gadreel and the fallout between the two brothers. This is strictly from Sam's POV, as is my new usual. This also has some heavy warnings attached to it, and I'm very firmly in the camp that possession can be a rape parallel, and that Sam also experienced sexual violence and abuse whilst in The Cage. As such, it won't feature heavily, but references will be made to it, subtle or straight out, so please, _please_ be careful whilst reading, and take care of yourself.  
>  **Author's Note #2** : As you may have noticed, _emergency room hangover_ is slotted under the  atrophy & other stories verse, which is true. It has loose roots to the verse, and subtle references will be made to it. I may also do a follow up to it that alludes to what happens to make the relationship between Sam and Castiel slowly fray. The best explanation at the moment is that, between everything; Sam being Soulless and then his trauma, Castiel breaking the wall and then the Leviathans, and everything in between all that, they haven't been able to reconcile, or simply talk about their relationship.  
>  **Author's Note #3** : Like I said before, this has very heavy warnings attached to it, _for good reasons_ , so please heed them, take care of yourself, and if you want to ask anything, you can comment, or send me an ask on [tumblr](http://saintsurvivor.tumblr.com/ask)

_I am learning / not what to collect / but what to destroy_

**Susan Sontag** , from the complete works, _The Benefactor_

Sam rests back against the wood of the bridge, feels it cut into the small of his back. He can’t help how he balls his hands into fists in his pockets; something is cold and aching in his chest that he doesn’t want to examine, doesn’t want to put name too. He’s almost afraid of what he’d find if he did. His anger has drained from him, leaving only emptiness and resignment.

Castiel has already laid fingers on his forehead to heal the wounds left by the numerous twelve gauge needles, rebuilt his crumpled flesh and fixed as much internal damage as he possibly could. But Castiel is just as rundown as Sam feels and Sam can see it in the lines of his face, the way his eyes are dimmer. It hurts, and it feels like grief, like something has cracked open and is slowly spilling through.

There’s a heavy pit in the very bottom of his belly, one that’s been there since Crowley crawled through his mouth and into his head to tell him of Gadreel. _The Failed Sentinel_. Sam sometimes thinks that irony loves him, sometimes a little too much.

His head is aching despite the healing, and he knows that he should be cold; fog is rolling in from the river, and the ground is wet with fallen rain, but he’s numb. He can’t feel the coldness of the air, nor the warmth of Castiel, standing just inches from him.

He can’t bare to close his eyes despite the pounding of his head, that matches with the beating of his heart. He only sees the slow morph of Dean’s face into that strangers, into _Gadreel_. Can only see Kevin’s face, burning and pained, and something that tastes like bile rises in the back of his throat.

He feels dirty, like he wants to scrub himself clean. He wants a red hot shower, wants to peel his skin from his bones and step into a new body that has never been inhabited. He presses his thumb against his old age palm scar, wishes it would make the world flicker around him like it did with his hallucinations. Wishes that he could believe that this is just a rather strong hallucination, that _stone number one_ didn’t rip that safety net away from him, that the holes in his memories didn’t exist.

He has conversations with Dean, with _Castiel_ that he no longer knows if they are real or if they are fabrications, and somehow, that is the most terrifying thing. He doesn’t know where he stands, or where he went, or how many times his mind has been wiped, has been patched together with grace and lies and ill-begotten promises of _everything is fine, little brother_.

He had so little trust to begin with. He no longer knows what to do.

Castiel steps a little closer, rests himself against the wooden rail of the bridge. It’s raining slightly, and Sam can see how the tan of Castiel’s trench coat is slowly becoming darker with the wetness. Something shudders inside of him and he bites his lip.

Then; “Sam,” Castiel says softly, and he’s close enough to touch now, to feel the heat of. “Sam, I’m so sorry.” The warm weight of his calloused hand against Sam’s shoulder is heavy, and though Sam would usually lean into it, he can’t help the shudder that runs down his spine. Immediately, Castiel’s hand falls to his side, and Sam tips an apologetic look the Angels way. Castiel shakes his head, and Sam doesn’t imagine the understanding look sketched across his face. Still, there is something he _needs_ to know.

“Did you know?” He asks of Castiel, can’t bare to look at him. He thinks of how Dean had said about how much he was poison to other people and Sam had swallowed down his agreement with his violation; he doesn’t think he can look at Castiel if Castiel had said he knew, and that he let it happen.

“No, Sam,” Castiel says immediately, and something rings in his voice that makes Sam relax against the rickety wooden bridge. “I swear, I didn’t.”

Sam exhales slowly, tips his head back. He doesn’t say anything for the longest time, and Castiel lets him. Instead, Castiel leans himself further against the wood of the bridge, close enough not to touch but if Sam wanted too, he could reach out and bump their shoulders together. He wants to, Christ does he want to. He's too scared. He hasn't been touched gently for so long.

The fog rolling slowly in from the river is getting thicker, and it makes Sam huddle tighter against the wooden bridge. The moon is full, and Sam can see how it glistens on the water of the river, the shimmering of it in the puddles on the pavement. He makes sure that he doesn't catch sight of his reflection; he doesn't want to look and not recognise himself. He should feel cold, he thinks distantly. He should want to be warm. He hasn’t felt cold or warm in years.

He sighs, thinks of how Dean’s face had broken, had split in two beneath the shimmering moon. He turns his head to Castiel, who has stood right besides him, protecting. Sam can still feel the slow warmth of Castiel’s grace in his veins, and it usually brings a measure of comfort. Now, it just makes him feel vaguely sick to his stomach.

“Would-would you look after him?” Sam asks quietly, because Sam knows what Dean is like. He wants to do it himself, _would_ do it himself, but he's afraid that he'd look at Dean and hate him, or worse; _forgive_ him. “Dean, I mean. He’s gonna need someone with him. To make sure he doesn't, you know, go off the deep end.”

Something flickers over Castiel’s face, cold and sharp and almost _hurt_. He takes a step forward, and Sam straightens up, tucks his elbows close to his ribs. He thinks of twelve gauge needles, of his palm to a forehead and shivers. He knows just how powerful an Angelic being may be, from Lucifer, from Gadreel, even Castiel himself. Castiel halts, immediately, and something seems to splinter in his eyes.

“You _think_ that I would-” Castiel exhales, turns his back to Sam and tilts his head up to look at the waning moon. The yellowing street lights barely illuminate the both of them, and Sam can’t help the way his eyes catch on Castiel’s profile, examining the strong slope of his nose, the arch of his cheeks, the sleek line of his throat. He’s still so beautiful, Sam thinks.

“Sam,” Castiel says, and he’s facing Sam now. Sam watches him, the way he’s open, how he comes as close as he can to Sam, stops only inches from him. His eyes are wide, silverlit, by moon, by grace. " _Sam.”_ His voice is breaking, and he’s staring at Sam like he _needs_ him to understand something.

“I’m sorry.” Sam says, desperate. He doesn’t know what's happening, why Castiel is looking at him like Sam is slowly breaking, like he’s splintering, fracturing at the seams. Yet the apology only seems to make Castiel’s face falter further.

 _Oh Father Forgive me,_ Sam thinks. He blinks. He’s only ever heard Castiel say that. _What have we done to you?_ He shakes his head. It sounds like static, a flickering radio just on the very edges of his mind.

“No, Samuel, _no,”_ Castiel is close as close can be. Sam can see the individual eyelashes that brush beneath his eyes as Castiel surges closer, as if to touch Sam’s biceps, like he did all those years ago. “You need not apologise, my love. _Not you,_ Samuel.”

Sam shakes, gives a shuddering breath that plumes in the still air surrounding them. He can still feel the ghostly imprints of Castiel’s calloused hands, the slow dance of grace that always curled around his bones, made him feel safe. He hates that what they had has been ruined.

“I'm not going to leave,” Castiel says, and Sam knows it isn't a statement; no, Castiel has always made vows and Sam _believes_ him. “Not unless you order me away, Samuel Winchester.”

Sam should.

He should tell him. He should tell Castiel to go to Dean, should tell Castiel to just _leave_ , because he knows what Dean is like, knows that Dean will simply drown himself in a haze of alcohol, sex and hunting; because Sam is on the very edge of breaking, of shattering into more pieces than before, dust and ashes. He _should_ tell Castiel to _leave_. He _should_.

But his mouth won’t open, and his throat won’t work, and he finds some sort of courage in the very drudges of his mind to tangle his fingers with Castiel’s trench coat sleeve, feeling the softness of the tan material, carefully keeping his fingers from touching skin. He’s scared that it’ll dissipate beneath his own flesh.

Castiel is watching him now. Carefully, Sam swallows thickly.

“Stay,” Sam says, trembling. In his mind, he can hear Dean’s quiet _I’d do it all over again_ , quiet like radio static, and can feel how his heart thuds, stopping and starting. He flicks his eyes to Castiel’s, and something settles across the mantle of Sam’s shoulders as Castiel simply watches him, careful. “Stay, please?”

Very carefully, Castiel twists his hand until his fingers touch at the edges of Sam’s sleeve. Their skin does not touch, and Sam can feel the long since locked away yearning he has, but the warm weight of Castiel’s hand against his covered wrist soothes something inside of Sam that has been roiling for _years_.

“Always,” Castiel says softly. “ _Always_.”

Sam closes his eyes and breathes. He aches, still.

He thinks he always will.

 

The only sound in the hotwired car is the soft _thud thump_ of the wheels against tarmac, and the slight splash as said wheels fall into the puddles leftover from the rain that had fell only hours before.

“Where are we going?” Castiel asks from the passenger seat. Sam very carefully doesn’t tense, only tightens his hands around the steering wheel, at a perfect ten and two, hearing the creak the leather of it gives.

Castiel doesn’t push him, and for that, Sam is infinitely grateful. He feels as if he’s holding onto a fraying thread, and he doesn’t know how to stop that thread from unravelling fully. He feels as if he’s being held together by the very last dregs of his energy, and he knows that Castiel is, most likely, feeling the same thing. Castiel is still running on empty, stolen grace giving a sour note to the usually comforting ozone and peppermint that Sam has become so used too. They need to get somewhere safe.

“I don’t know.” Sam says quietly. He stares resolutely out the front windscreen mirror.

He squints his eyes against the flare of headlights as a truck goes sailing past them. He tightens his fingers further around the leather of the steering wheel, has to carefully make sure he doesn’t press down on the accelerator to ram the car into a tree, or yank them into the oncoming traffic in the next lane. It’s only Castiel’s presence and his own self-control that stops him. He bites down on his lip, hopes the world with flicker out.

“We could go to the bunker.” Castiel points out the obvious place.

Sam can see the reflection of his face on the front windscreen, how the orange of the street lights illuminates the silk of his hair, the dimness of his usually bright eyes. For all of it, despite his lack of proper grace, the guilt that weighs down upon Castiel’s shoulders, Sam still loves him, and it makes something settle across his shoulders. But at the moment, he’s too ruined, he’s damaged goods, especially for Castiel, who has always seen the best in him when Sam himself couldn’t.

He _should_ go to the bunker. That’s the safest place for them, for _Castiel_ , especially in his depleted state and Sam knows he should protect him, especially with what Castiel has been saying about the warring factions of angels. Sam tries not to be selfish, and he knows they need to be safe, but panic takes his breath and his head _pounds_.

“I know.” Sam says, and he has to tear his gaze away from the reflection of Castiel’s face lest he end up crashing.

He wonders if any of the conversations he has of him and Castiel over the past few weeks, the tenderness in which Castiel touched him, were real or not; if Gadreel had simply took pieces of past memories and had crafted them together to keep Sam in a happy haze. It _aches_ not knowing. He wonders if Castiel knows the full extent to which Gadreel had wiped and manipulated Sam’s memory; he doesn’t know if the thought of Castiel knowing is more terrifying than him _not_ knowing.

“But?” Castiel asks, maybe he reads the hesitance in Sam’s shoulders, the way Sam doesn’t want to go back. Not when he knows that Dean is probably making his way to the bunker, because the bunker is _Dean’s_ , Dean has laid claim to it as home, and whilst Sam had originally wanted a home to go to, all those years ago, that want has been _burned_ and _yanked_ out of him until all that is left is the ashes.

Worst still, he can no longer feel safe in a place where _Dean_ will be. There’s been moments throughout the years that Sam has been scared of Dean, stiff with terror sometimes, but this is the first time in a long time that he is almost paralysed with fear, with the thought that Dean will come and Sam won’t be able to _escape_. He thinks of “ _monster,_ ” and “ _I would want to hunt you_ ,” and wonders if Dean would still hunt him even when Dean was the one who made him into this monster.

He can’t choke out the words to answer Castiel, to expound into words that way that just _thinking_ of going back to Dean makes him shake, makes him swallow down bile and terror and thoughts of the devil. He’s never wanted to compare Dean with Lucifer, never even thought he would be given the _chance_ too, but all he can think of is Dean’s face morphing into Gadreels, the gut-punching, teeth-clenching thought of Lucifer morphing into Dean, into Castiel, into Jessica, into John. Thinking _stone number one_ and how _stone number one_ had been the first and last thing to crumble in a wall already demolished.

He no longer knows what is real and what is not, and it’s the most terrifying thing he’s felt in a long time.

So, instead of doing what he wants; instead of clinically stepping on the accelerator and driving this stolen car into the way of oncoming traffic, or swallowing a gun, or asking Castiel to smite him, he pulls over abruptly.

He’s always had good self-control, he thinks; and yet, he sits still in that drivers seat, staring out at the window, hands at a perfect ten and two. It slowly stops raining, for all that the belly of the sky is still full of it. It is only after he’s recited the _Pater Noster_ thrice, does he lift his fingers off of the creaking steering wheel, one by one.

From his side, Castiel watches him and Sam no longer knows if the Castiel by his side is is really there.

 

Castiel is driving, and the window is wound down. As Sam watches, Castiel swallows and accelerates slowly.

“You’re getting good at that.” Sam says softly, and his throat aches. Castiel takes his eyes off of the road for only a second, but that is enough to see the undying blue of his eyes, how the yellowing of the street lights illuminates the arches of his brows, the curve of his jaw.

“You were an excellent teacher.” Castiel says, and his cheek curls up in a way that makes Sam sure he’s smiling slightly. The stolen car is abruptly plunged into darkness before being illuminated the the street lights again, the faint neon glow of an _OPEN_ sign of a gas station.

“The good old days.” Sam says, almost wistful. He can barely remember teaching Castiel how to drive, the neon signs of _NO VACANCIES_ a soft looming light through river fog, the soft patter of rain against the Impala’s windows, the way Castiel had looked when Sam had placed his hand over Castiel’s and showed him what to do. He misses it. Misses it like he misses warmth, misses Castiel like an aching limb. He doesn’t know what’s happened to them, wants to dig deep for the affection and love he always felt for Castiel, but he’s just so numb, as if he’s a sieve that all emotion passes through.

He wants to sleep for years. He’d take even The Cage if he could just _feel_.

“You are allowed to be angry, Sam.” Castiel says softly besides him. Sam blinks slowly, and he tightens his hands against the heavy denim of his jeans. They’ve parked up, Sam realises, and he presses his thumb against his old age palm scar, because he remembers missing time and Dean’s carefree _nothing’s wrong_ , and that sickening feeling that _something_ was wrong.

He can’t breathe. _He can’t breathe_ , something cold is creeping down his throat, it feels like frostbite, like freezer burn. He’s going to drown in his own bile and his own panic. He grabs at his chest, scrapes his fingernails over the bare expanse of where his tattoo was and it only makes something inside him crack _open_ , as if something has been hacked up inside of him, slowly bleeding. _He can’t breathe_ -

“-it, Samuel, breat-, that’s it,” Castiel’s voice comes in like a badly tuned radio, stopping and starting, staticky. Castiel is not touching him, but is close enough to and that seems to be enough.

He lurches forward, chest screaming for something he can’t give and his head, _his head_ is _pounding,_ an old age rhythm of drums and rock salt shotgun kickback and the car is _rattling_ , breaking apart, the glass is _cracking-_

Blood rushes in his ear and the glass _shatters_.

Something grabs him by the shoulders, ducks him down low. Someone is lying over him, he doesn’t know why. He can hear a racing heartbeat in his ears, just above his head and the crunch of broken glass beneath his feet. Then, desperate; “ _Sam_.”

He tries to inhale, feels the whistle of it as he grabs at his head, the sickening feeling of migraines pulsing through his temples, just behind his eyes. He is no longer being laid across, no longer being touched and it both breaks and makes something inside of him-

“ _Sam!”_ Is shouted down his ear and the sheer shock of volume makes something crack, spilling open like ocean waves and it’s as if someone has turned on the radio; has turned it up and up and _up_ and he can hear _everything_ ; the rustle of leaves, the slow drip of the rain against the windows, the way Castiel’s heart is thundering in his ears, and the sharp staticky run on of voices he can’t identify, a simple blur of grey in between his eyes and he _cannot breathe_ -

Then; “ _Please, Sam,_ ” Soft, tender. A hand touches between his shoulder blades and the noises slowly bleed out, simply fade until they are but muted whimpers at the very back of his mind.  “Answer me, Samuel Winchester.” Castiel orders, but his voice breaks, like glass.

Sam doesn’t move for several long minutes. Simply concentrates on the racing of his heart between his ears-

Wait. That _isn’t_ his heart. That is Castiel’s; it’s thundering, an echoing beat of panic that makes Sam’s own heart race and he swallows down the panic he can feel rising in his chest.

Castiel lies a gentle hand over his covered wrist, alight with stark white grace. His face is lined with panic and heavy with fear.

“What’s _happening_ to me?” Sam gasps, hunching over. Castiel simply stares, wide eyed and disbelieving, at him.

As if he cannot believe his eyes.

_most days / I am a museum of things I want to forget_

**E.E Scott** , from _“Everyday I am Trying New Techniques to Make Myself Disappear,”_ published in  Shabby Doll House 


	2. lineage of a body

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Sam’s toes curl into the damp grass, and he lets Castiel take his hand in his, drawing him from the empty field. He can’t help looking back though, and the trees sway in the breeze as a raven takes to the skies, cawing loudly._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Author's Note** : This is chapter two, and it's got pretty heavy warnings attached to it; such as disassociation, suicidal thoughts and ideation alongside touch starvation and Sam's inability to find trust in either the people around him and himself.

_A total isolation / as if a beating heart is painfully ripped out_

**Anna Akhmatova** , tr. by Judith Hemschemeyer, from _Requiem_ ”

It’s cold, or at least, Sam thinks it is.

It _should_ be cold, Sam knows distantly. He can feel the wet dampness of dew beneath his feet, the slow curl of frost crawling up his torso, settling across his shoulders. He’s staring up at the sky though, and that seems to take up all of his concentration.

He watches as a cloud ghosts slowly across the dawn light sky. The sun is rising, bright and brilliant and golden. It sets everything it touches alight in a golden fire and it makes something inside of Sam _hurt_ , indescribably breathless. Something, Sam knows, is crippled irrevocably inside of him, and he can never get it untwisted.

Sam knows this, like he knows the _Pater Noster_ , like he knows how many times he’s broken bones, like he knows an exorcism, like he knows that something inside of him, especially now, is _wrong_. Sam has been wrong for his entire life, and perhaps this is simply setting a new level of it, but something trembles inside of him, tight and high strung, like an elastic band.

He’s trembling. Little shudders up and down his arms and legs, it makes him simply tilt his head further to the empty skies, breathing a white plume in the air as the sun rises. He shouldn’t be here, he knows. Numbness creeps up on him, like a limb that’s fallen asleep, the deadair of a hurricane. He tries to move his fingers and can’t tell if he has.

A breeze ruffles his hair, makes strands of it catch on his eyelashes. He doesn’t move, simply watches the slow move of early morning clouds drift across the skies. He can feel the damp of dew slowly crawling up his calves, turning the soft fabric of his sweat pants heavy against his legs. The caw of a raven taking flight from a nearby tree doesn’t startle him, barely manages to penetrate the haze he can feel settling over him like a well worn blanket.

It should be cold, Sam thinks vaguely. But it doesn’t feel warm.

“Sam?” Someone says, it sounds like they’re very far away.

A hand touches his shoulder, rests in the very curve where his shoulder and throat meet. Huge and warm, Sam can’t help how he leans into it, how it makes the ghostly film across his eyes lift for just a minute. A sour note lingers on the back of his tongue though, it tastes like it should be peppermint, ozone, but it isn’t quite right. He doesn’t know why.

“Sam,” That same faraway voice says, soft. That hand curls further, thumb rubbing against the jut of his jaw, calloused fingers tangling in the hair at Sam’s nape. “Sam, look at me.”

Sam doesn’t turn, but he wants too. That faraway voice is familiar, something about it sinking deep in his skin, something calming roils over him, deep and vast like an ocean. Staring into that golden hued sky, Sam doesn’t turn his gaze away, but something inside of him sits up and takes notice, reaches towards it with ghostly tendrils that ache.

“ _S_ _amuel_.” That faraway voice again, slow and deep, almost as if from underwater. Sam wants to reach towards it, to turn in to that huge and warm hand on his jaw, the back of his neck. Like an elastic band stretched too tight, he simply snaps back into place as soon as he tries.

A raven takes flight from a nearby tree again, and its caw is long and loud, echoing across the field’s empty horizon. Just on the very cusp of it, the trees tremble, the wooden rickety fence flickers in his gaze. Two figures replace it, hazy around the edges, the sunlight illuminates them. They cast no shadow. Sam can’t breathe.

“ _Samuel_.” That drowned voice says, and Sam tries to reach for it. Ice settles beneath his tongue, choking the back of his throat. He didn’t think he had a throat with which to cough, nor a tongue in which to choke upon. He feels dizzy and formless, something less than alive but more than dead. The sun alights upon his brow, golden fire anointed.

Those two hazy figures turn, featureless. One falls to their knees, and Sam can just hear begging; the wind sweeps pleading treaties to Sam, slow and curling like music, as if they have all the time in the world. The standing figure says something back and the wind too, breezes it to Sam, and Sam watches, as if in a haze, as an axe appears.

When that axe thuds down, no ravens take to the skies. They simply sit in their trees, cawing.

Sam can no longer remember if those figures had been featureless before and or after he’d saw the one be beheaded; the only thing he remembers is a strange symbol on the standing one’s right forearm, blinding bright and malicious.

There is no body that Sam watches fall to the ground, nor is there a splatter of blood. He blinks, numbness crawling inside of his chest, wrapping around his throat, the very forefront of his mind, and there is only the illumination of the sun, golden hued upon those pine trees.

Sam doesn’t know or understand what happens; only that it’s like an elastic band snapping back into place, stretched too far and too wide. Sam breathes, blinks and _jolts_. Something feels different and Sam can’t tell what. The sun is still illuminating a golden fire, the ravens still caw upon their trees, that rickety fence still sways in the soft breeze, Sam is still alive, still standing barefoot upon the grass.

Castiel stands in front of him, cradling Sam’s jaw in warm hands. They’re huge against his face, and those undying eyes of Castiel’s bore into him, dark and worried. He’s close enough to feel the heat of, and Sam feels his fingers curling into his palms, the chilliness of damp dew creeping up his calves, the shivering of his muscles in a long sleeve shirt.

“Cas?” He asks. He doesn’t recognise this place, doesn’t recognise this empty field, nor the softly swaying trees, nor that rickety fence slowly collapsing in on itself. “Cas?” He asks again.

“Samuel,” Castiel says and his tone is almost relieved. Sam feels something trembling within him, but he doesn’t know what it is. Only knows that he’s looking at Castiel and that Sam never wants to look away again. Electric gracelight softly seeps from beneath Castiel’s skin, and though it isn’t the same hue that Sam has come to associate with Castiel, it is beautiful all the same.

“W-Where are we?” Sam asks, and he can feel the trembling of his arms and legs, the chilliness slowly creeping up his ribs, wrapping around his chest. His breath hitches, and he scrunches his eyes closed, takes a deep breath and wishes he could dig his thumb into his scar.

“Two miles outside of Central Lake, Michigan,” Castiel says, and he keeps his touch to Sam’s jaw, anchors him; any port in the storm. “We should get you back to the motel.”

“It’s cold” Sam asks quietly, and his gaze turns towards that empty expanse of field, the place where those hazy figures materialized, revisiting the way they’d just simply dissipated in the dawn’s early light.

Castiel watches him closer still, anointed in the golden sunlight that falls across the mantle of his shoulders, how it dyes the dark of his hair a brightness Sam can’t name.

“Here,” Castiel says. “Take this.” And he steps closer, slips out of his trench coat and slings it across Sam’s shoulders. It doesn’t cover him fully, but the warmth he can feel of it seeps into him, for all that it dissipates when he gets used to, Sam feels something untwisting from inside of him.

In the far distance, a vehicle goes roaring past and Sam flinches, ducks his head.

“We should get you inside,” Castiel says, instead of drawing attention to the way Sam flinched. “You’re going to get ill.”

Sam’s toes curl into the damp grass, and he lets Castiel take his hand in his, drawing him from the empty field. He can’t help looking back though, and the trees sway in the breeze as a raven takes to the skies, cawing loudly.

That rickety fence flickers in his vision, and Sam doesn’t blink until he’s safely in the car. Even then, something haunts him still for all that he can’t remember what or why; only a hazy dream and a cold, heavy feeling wrapping around his shoulders.

 

“Sam,” Castiel says. He leans forward, elbows to knees. He’s watching Sam, avidly. “Why were you out there?”

The motel room is clean and tidy, the sun falling through the slits of the blinds across the windows, casting golden shadows across Sam and Castiel, and the carpeted floor. Castiel is watching him closely, sat on the side of the bed opposite Sam. His face is lined with something Sam can’t put a name to, or perhaps he just doesn’t want to.

“I don’t know,” Sam says. He’s sitting opposite Castiel on the edge of the bed too, freshly showered and bundled into clothes that Castiel had insisted he wear; soft sweatpants and a long sleeved shirt, which had been amongst the small pile of supplies that they’d brought in Toledo the day before they arrived in Central Lake. “I just…”

In his mind eyes, he can see that empty field, those swaying trees and that rickety fence, the way it had all slowly dissolved beneath the dawn’s early light, golden and luminous in the rolling fog, those two hazy figures, featureless even as it the sun span shadows around them.

“Sam?” Castiel says, and he leans forward as much as he can. He’s still watching Sam, eyes dark and wondering. Sam thinks he’s concerned, with the stiffness of his shoulders, the clench of his jaw; the way he’s looking at Sam as if Sam is going to dissipate before his very eyes.

Sam makes an effort to breathe, but that only makes the scent of pine trees ever more real, and it’s like the wetness of his damp hair on his nape is the dampness of dew once more, creeping down his back.

Calloused fingers wrap around his hands, and it jolts something inside of him, makes him pay attention. He doesn’t say anything for the longest time, simply stares at how Castiel’s fingers touch the roughness of his palms, the way their fingers tangle, slotted together intimately. In the distance, a car goes past, briefly blocking the sunlight falling into the room and casting strange shadows across Castiel’s face, but Sam simply turns his hands palm up, pressing a thumb into the delicate expanse of Castiel’s hand, feeling the shift of the fine bones there.

The touch thrums something inside of him, and it’s like an ocean of hurt has finally been quietened inside of him, as if settling a wildfire. It’s both the most beautiful feeling Sam has ever had as well as being the most terrible, because this is the gentlest he’s been touched in years.

Castiel’s hands grip his tighter, palm to palm, fingers to wrists, as if to feel the thrumming of a pulse against fingertips. It’s electrifying, livewire gracelight beneath his tongue and Sam can’t help but slump forward, illuminated in gold.

“Sam,” Castiel says quietly. “Why were you out there?”

Sam simply shudders again, curls his fingers tighter around the expanse of Castiel’s wrists, tries not to dig his nails in to the delicate flesh.

“I don’t know,” Sam says, just as he had before. His toes curl into the carpet on the floor, just as his toes did in that dew damp grass, and he can feel his arms and legs trembling once more. “I just….I woke up there.”

“You _woke up_ there?” Castiel repeats, and there is something on his face that makes Sam flinch. He still hasn’t forgotten the way Castiel had looked at him, two days and three nights ago, when those car windows had shattered with no reason, how Sam had gasped a question he wished he hadn’t because then it made it _real_.

But it’s real, and Sam doesn’t know what to do. Even though only two days have passed since Dean letting Crowley crawl into his head to occupy him alongside Gadreel, and that first panic attack in that stolen call in Somerset, Pennsylvania, it’s happened more and more often, as if something both far away from, and too close, is sliding into him, day by day. It started simply with shattered glass brought on by panic, but then it was moving an object only several feet away from him, to an outpouring of things Sam can’t possibly begin to explain with natural reasons.

He thinks he knows what this is though, this new variation that’s emerged, and it’s a noose around his neck, a loaded gun pressed to his temple.

“I thought I was _dreaming_ ,” Sam explains quietly, feels the way his throat’s gone tight, “I thought....no, I _was_ dreaming, dreaming of _Dean_ , and then of an empty field. But I don’t _understand_. I saw that field and those two _things_ , and I saw one of them kill the other and-”

“And what, Sam?” Castiel says softly, and he’s leant ever close, close enough to feel the heat of, he’s on the very edge of the bed now, both of their knees knocking together. Sam bites his lip, squeezes Castiel’s hands tighter than ever.

“I felt them _die_ , Castiel,” Sam says, and if it’s more like a gasp, Castiel doesn’t say anything, only keeps his eyes locked with Sam’s. “I felt the _axe_ and I felt them _die_.”

Castiel doesn’t seem to understand, forehead furrowed, alighted with a dawn gold crown across his brow. Something in his eyes is concerned, endlessly worried and something inside of Sam clenches tightly; this is all his fault, if he’d had just completed the Trials, if he’d _died_ , Dean wouldn’t have to stuff Gadreel inside of him, Kevin would still be alive; they wouldn’t be sitting here, now.

“What do you mean?” Castiel asks, and he’s looking at Sam still, eyes locked. His face isn’t blank, but Sam can barely read Castiel’s expression past the tears in his eyes.

“I felt as they died, as they were hit in the _head_ , Castiel,” Sam says all over again, and Castiel simply looks at him, uncomprehending. “But it wasn’t just _them_.”

“Sam, please,” Castiel says, and he’s on his knees, crouched between Sam’s thighs, face upturned to gaze at Sam, and his eyes are wide and worried. His hands are no longer in Sam’s, no, they’ve creeped up his arms, touching the curve of his shoulders, the bump of his clavicle. Castiel’s hands have crept up his throat, are cradling his jaw in tender, infinitely soft hands.

He’s both too close and too far away and Sam’s hands fist into the broad expanse of Castiel’s shirt covered chest, feeling the firmness of muscles, the sharp thud of a heartbeat, pulling closer and pushing away and before he can blink, Sam is pressed forehead to forehead to Castiel, cradled like an infant and he should feel annoyed but he only feels _safe_.

It’s been so long since he’s felt safe that he simply closes his eyes, lets his head rest on Castiel’s sturdy shoulder, twists his hands into Castiel’s shirt ever tighter.

“ _I felt myself die_ ,” He gasps into Castiel’s shoulder.

 

They leave Central Lake, Michigan in their stolen rearview mirror only a couple of hours after Sam had awoken in that empty field.

Castiel had made Sam recite exactly what he had saw, how he had felt and had then gathered Sam to him as if Sam was  something infinitely precious before letting him go, telling him to get shoes on and to pack hurriedly. Sam had done so, faintly bewildered but too shellshocked to do any different.

The fog rolling in from the river running parallel to the blacktop sweeps in across the tarmac, making Castiel squint into the distance with the fog headlights switched to high.

The only sounds in the car are the thump thuds of the wheels across tarmac, the splash of puddles as Castiel drives across the blacktop in the way of how Dean usually would, and the faint sounds of the old, beaten up radio playing Ella Jenkin’s gospel _Wade in The Water_ , staticky and strained.

“ _\- that band all dressed in white, God is gonna trouble these waters_ -”

Castiel had all but demanded to drive, had shoved their bags of clothes and weapons that Sam had salvaged from a Campbell safehouse in Toledo and had helped Sam get into the passenger side seat.

_“ -looks like a band of the Israelites, God is gonna trouble these waters -”_

“Castiel.” Sam says, and he’s thankful that his voice doesn’t shake.

Castiel’s silent for a while, simply pressing further down on the accelerator and roaring through the fogged up expanse of the blacktop.

“It’s your visions, Sam,” Castiel’s says, and he allows himself a glance at Sam. Sam watches him, unnerved. He’s never seen Castiel like this, so tightly strung and _scared_. “I’ve had a theory since yesterday, but it wasn’t until you told me what you saw that I managed to put all the pieces together.”

“- _see that band all dressed in red, God is gonna trouble these waters -”_

“I know it’s my powers, Castiel,” Sam points out, settling against the passenger side door. “I’d have to be pretty stupid, after all.”

“- _like a band that Moses led, God is gonna trouble these waters_ -”

“I know that, Sam,” Castiel says, but there’s something lingering in the lines of his face, dark and worried, that makes Sam’s heart thud dully against his ribs. “But because of what’s happened, especially Gadreel-”

“Cas,” Sam says tiredly. “I know.”

“Sam-”

“I know it’s probably because of those needles, Cas.”

“Yes, that, but I also think that things are going to get a lot more volatile, Sam,” Castiel says, and his eyes are darker than ever, hooded as they stare into the thin veil of fog as they  slip into Ann Arbor’s country back roads. “With the random demon blood you ingested previously, you only had a select few gifts available to you, considering that they would have probably been fully unlocked with only Azazel’s blood, but now that they’ve been blasted wide open somehow because of us placing those …”

From very far away, as if tuning into a bad radio, he can hear Castiel’s voice in the back of his mind, worried and stricken, pleading for things to be alright. It makes Sam’s mouth dry, biting down on his bottom lip.

Castiel’s voice slowly trails off, and Sam’s breath hitches even as his hands tighten into fists. He can gather the implications of what Castiel is saying and what he _isn’t_ saying easily; it’s only what he’s thought of himself, after all.

He thinks, inexplicably, of Lily, all those years ago in Cold Oak. Lily, with her pale hair, and pale eyes, and pale skin, of her almost tangible fear as she had clutched her hands to her chest, even covered in fitted leather gloves as they were. He thinks of her trembling mouth, her quivering shoulders, the rage in her eyes and the pain in her voice as she’d told them all of how she’d killed her girlfriend, how she had been the last person Lily had ever allowed herself to touch.

Sam thinks of Lily, and he swallows the bile in his throat and closes his eyes.

On the radio, Ella Jenkins continues to croon, smooth and deep; “ _-wade in the water, children, wade in the water, God is gonna trouble these waters.”_

 

Like scenes in a film, the fog rolling in from the river running parallel to the blacktop dissipates as they leave Michigan behind. Night’s fallen, and Castiel is sitting in the passenger seat, shoulder pressed against Sam’s.

Sam had tried to stop Castiel from even doing that; for all that he enjoys the touches, the way Castiel touches him softly, like Sam is something to be treated tenderly, Sam knows only to well how his powers could get out of hand, and if it’s true that an ability like Lily’s could even have the _possibility_ to manifest, Sam would rather refrain from all touch rather than risk it. He couldn’t bare if he ended up getting another friend killed; at night he still wakes up, Kevin’s blackened eyes peering at him from the burning ceiling.

He’s lived without proper touch for years now; ever since climbing from the Cage and being reunited with his soul, and then having his Hell Wall demolished, he’d had very good reason not to want to be touched, and between that time, he and Castiel had never had chance to actually sit down and discuss their relationship, which had since been discontinued on account of Sam committing ritual suicide to keep Lucifer from ending the world as they knew it and then coming back sans a very important of him.

But still, the thought of _why_ and _how_ his powers had come to reemerge is something that upsets him. Sam stares resolutely out the windscreen window, and he can’t help the way his hands tighten upon the leather of the steering wheel. He can’t deny that he’s angry at Castiel as well, for all that he understands that Castiel had had very little involvement. Still, the thought that Castiel had _burned_ off his anti-possession tattoo, had stood by and _allowed_ Crowley to possess him; it rankles and it makes the hair on the back of his neck stand up on end. Still, he knows he doesn’t feel half as harsh to Castiel as he does to _Dean_.

Dean had _lied_ , over and over and over. It makes bile rise in the back of Sam’s throat as he thinks of how many times Dean had really lied to him, and how many times Sam had sat in his room back at the bunker, trying to tell himself he was fine, that nothing was going on, that he was still _himself_.

The clattering of the car windows in their holders make Sam take a long, slow breath. He needs to calm down, he thinks, and can’t help the tightening of his fingers around the creaking steering wheel.

He’s just so tired. So tired of having to go through this, again and again; of not knowing if his body is his own, if his thoughts are his own. He tightens his hands around the leather of the steering wheel.

He doesn’t know what’s going to happen next, only that he’s tired and aching, and his vision from this morning had terrified him on the most basic level.

He just doesn’t know what to do. It isn’t a comforting thought. He wishes he could trust the people around him, wishes that he could trust  _himself_.

_(...)and I returned, smiling and haunted, to a dark morning_

**Denise Levertov,** from the poem _To The Snake_


End file.
